Internet access providers should be compensated for website blocking requested by IP right owners. In a nutshell, this is what the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled back in June. The entire saga, however, has much wider implications and should be properly considered beyond the UK borders. Background The Cartier case arose from a…
Website blocking injunctions have been available in European countries for some years now. In the UK, the first case was brought in 2010 by a group of US movie studios against BT to block access to the Newzbin website. Since then, blocking injunctions have become popular in a number of EU countries, especially after their…
A recent decision of the Munich Regional Court marks the first-ever blocking order in Germany against a copyright infringing website (judgment of 1 February 2018 – BeckRS 2018, 2857; English translation available here). If confirmed by higher courts (the judgment is subject to ongoing appeal proceedings), the decision will indeed have paved the way for…
The Spanish court has recently given judgment in proceedings brought by various audiovisual producers belonging to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), against a number of telecommunications companies who provide Internet access. The proceedings were aimed at having the latter take measures to block Internet access to certain websites that were making protected audiovisual…
The Court of Appeal of Lisbon held that the violation of the right to publish a work post mortem, against the will of the author or of his/her heirs, is a serious and irreparable infringement of the author’s moral rights and provides sufficient justification to order an interim injunction. Case date: 2 May 2017 Case number: 348/16.2YHLSB.L1-1…
In an in-depth analysis for the European Parliament, the author has looked at liability of online service providers with regard to infringements concerning copyright protected content. In particular, the paper tries to answer the question of whether regulatory action is needed in relation to the liability of online service providers for copyright protected content. The…
The Supreme Court confirmed that performing artists (performers) have a mandatory right to equitable remuneration from broadcasters or movie producers as consideration for the statutory assignment of most of their rights to broadcasters and producers. Moreover, the Court declared that in award calculation two methods of fixing the amount of remuneration are possible: either as…
The Court of Appeal confirmed that playing phonograms in a night club requires authorisation from and payment to the relevant right holders (performers and artists). On the question of damages, the Court confirmed that the award of punitive-like damages should be limited to cases of serious and repeated infringement. In the present case, as this…
In this case, the Supreme Court of Estonia analyses the concept of the “hypothetical licence fee” under the Estonian Copyright Act, in accordance with Article 13(1)b) of the EU Enforcement Directive. The court is of the opinion that the “hypothetical licence fee” must be calculated based on the real value of the right of use…
The French Supreme Court held that the costs relating to the blocking measures ordered by the courts are strictly necessary for the preservation of the intellectual property rights and that the courts may order the internet service providers and search engine providers to bear such costs. Case date: 6 July 2017 Court: Court of Cassation of France,…
